For businesses large and small, relying on a cloud-based collaboration and productivity suite such as Microsoft Office 365 is becoming the norm. Enhancing productivity in your organisation is vital to get ahead in 2017 - and using Office 365 can help, if it's used right...

That was an increase of just 700,000 in the quarter, implying that it will take 19 years to finish the roll-out to the 53 million or so premises across the country.

The roll-out has been hampered by a series of mistakes. These include rushing out over-complicated specifications, the Smart Meter Equipment Technical Specification (SMETS), before they were finished. As a result, some suppliers started rolling out "smart-type meters without the full functionalities included in SMETS", according to the report. Those meters will need to be replaced in three years.

On top of that, the Data Communications Company, which is supposed to correlate the minute-by-minute usage data from millions of smart meters and send them on to the appropriate power company, is late. Those systems are being built by ultra-competent outsourcer Capita, which has missed a series of deadlines.

Despite lacking in terms of these crucial elements of infrastructure, the old Department for Energy and Climate Change insisted that the roll-out should go ahead anyway.

"I hate my smart meter. It's Zigbee and interferes with everything, which for a smarthome nerd like me is irritating. Also, the Zigbee protocol is closed. It isn't compatible with any other Zigbee products, including Hive which uses its own proprietary version of Zigbee," said Merriman.

The smart meter connectivity problems mirror that of other supposedly smart products, added Merriman. "It's no different with Z-Wave. D-Link, for example, won't let anyone else's products on their Z-Wave hub. It's infuriating and, ultimately, really short-sighted because it will only put people off."

Other users complain that their smart meter doesn't even communicate with the power company, either because they are in a mobile ‘not spot', or because they have changed supplier and the new supplier is unable to accommodate data from the ‘old' smart meter.